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Daniel Ellsberg, no slouch himself in bringing to public awareness documents that reveal uncomfortable facts about government operations, says that "Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time." Ellsberg says, in an editorial at The Guardian pointed out by reader ABEND (15913), that Snowden cannot receive a fair trial without reform of the Espionage Act. According to Ellsberg, "Snowden would come back home to a jail cell – and not just an ordinary cell-block but isolation in solitary confinement, not just for months like Chelsea Manning but for the rest of his sentence, and probably the rest of his life. His legal adviser, Ben Wizner, told me that he estimates Snowden's chance of being allowed out on bail as zero. (I was out on bond, speaking against the Vietnam war, the whole 23 months I was under indictment). More importantly, the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing. Legal scholars have strongly argued that the US supreme court – which has never yet addressed the constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to leaks to the American public – should find the use of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence of a public interest defense. The Espionage Act, as applied to whistleblowers, violates the First Amendment, is what they're saying. As I know from my own case, even Snowden's own testimony on the stand would be gagged by government objections and the (arguably unconstitutional) nature of his charges. That was my own experience in court, as the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for giving information to the American people." Ellsberg rejects the distinction made by John Kerry in praising Ellsberg's own whistleblowing as patriotic, but Snowden's as cowardly and traitorous.

which further reduces the changes of Snowden having any chance at a life, or a glimpse of sunlight. IMPHO he can only come home after being granted a full and unconditional pardon. try that in the face of spy bureaucracy in full sway.

It's not just the spy bureaucracy. According to polls most of the American people do not approve of his actions. And this is a democracy, so that matters.

Snowden's core problem is that the American people approve of a good half of the programs Greenwald has outed. Spying on people like Angie Merkel is the entire reason we instructed our Congress to spend $30-$40 per person on an NSA. Period. End of story. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Same goes for most of the other NSA revelations (spying on Brazil's government, helping the Aussies spy on Indonesia, etc.). Pretty much the only thing he's revealed that most Americans actually care about was the mass surveillance on US Citizens, and a lot of that was oversold [zdnet.com].

It doesn't help that he ended up in Russia. With the Crimea mess he just looks like Putin's puppet. To an extent that can be blamed on the "spy bureaucracy," but if Snowden knew he was gonna piss of the State Department, and he knew that he'd only be allowed to travel if State didn't revoke his documents, then he probably should not have gone through Moscow. Moreover I suspect our spy bureaucracy is actually good enough to get the timing right on that. There wasn't that much time between boarding a plane in HK and switching flights. I suspect the Chinese didn't want him, so they let him through with revoked documents, and then Putin him decided to keep him in a glass box.

To an extent I sympathize with him, but what's that old saying about the Game of Thrones? You win or you die? Snowden could have chosen to leak his documents anonymously through a Congressman. Amash would have loved to blame Obama for evil. Wyden is always good on these issues. And he probably could have done so anonymously, because the NSA can't piss off Congress or they all get fired, and Congress doesn't like it when the Executive branch hinders them in their core duty of making life difficult of said Executive branch. But he went through the media, which meant nobody in power in the US had any particular reason to protect him, so now he's Putin's bitch. It would be nice if this was Star Trek and shit like this didn't happen, but it ain't.

It doesn't help that he ended up in Russia. With the Crimea mess he just looks like Putin's puppet. To an extent that can be blamed on the "spy bureaucracy," but if Snowden knew he was gonna piss of the State Department, and he knew that he'd only be allowed to travel if State didn't revoke his documents, then he probably should not have gone through Moscow.

If I were Edward Snowden I would not want to route a series of flights to South American, where he was originally intending to go, that would take me through airports in American-friendly countries. Going to Russia on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow and then to Cuba and then from there to somewhere in South American would have been the smartest thing to do. I doubt the US would be willing to piss off the Russians by sending out the F-15s to intercept a Russian-flagged airliner. And as Snowden has pointed out, once in Russia he was unable to go any farther except back to the US because the State Department had revoked his passport. However, it is rather fortuitous that Snowden is in Russian. That is probably the best place for him to be, especially now because Putin is not going to be doing any favors for the American government.

It's not just the spy bureaucracy. According to polls most of the American people do not approve of his actions.

Which is why calls were 100 to 1 against telecom immunity in 2008, from across the ideological spectrum. Because if there's one thing a majority of Americans want, it's corrupt unaccountable Big Brother spying on the entire planet. And that's before getting to the naked hackery of NBC's polling. You run a poll asking 'do you support Snowden taking classified documents to Putin's Russia?!?!?' and are surprised at the results? How about 'do you support whisteblowers when they reveal top officials breaking the law hundreds of times a second every day of the week'?

Spying on people like Angie Merkel is the entire reason we instructed our Congress to spend $30-$40 per person on an NSA. Period. End of story. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Is this perfromance art, or did you bring enough hallucenegic drugs for everybody? Cuz you're on some mighty powerful acid if you're seriously suggesting we need to spend hundreds of billions to tap the personal communications of our closest allies.

It doesn't help that he ended up in Russia.

It doesn't work to blame Snowden for ending up in Putin's Russia when it was Clinton's State Department who canceled his passport on his way to South America. And for having the president of Ecuador's plane forced down because he might have been carrying Snowden on board.

According to polls most of the American people do not approve of his actions. And this is a democracy, so that matters.

Its a Constitutional Democracy. So what the mob thinks doesn't make it right. We have a Bill of Rights which Snowden (and others) claim is being violated.

Opinion poll results to the effect that Snowden did wrong point out another problem with him returning: How is he going to get a fair trial with practically every potential juror having read stories (propaganda) about him and having an opinion already?

Spying on people like Angie Merkel is the entire reason we instructed our Congress to spend $30-$40 per person on an NSA. Period. End of story. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Same goes for most of the other NSA revelations (spying on Brazil's government, helping the Aussies spy on Indonesia, etc.).

Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning that U.S. intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone, saying that would be "a serious breach of trust" if confirmed. The two leaders spoke by phone, Carney said.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," said Carney. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

Why did Obama promise not to spy on Merkel if that's what "we instructed our Congress to" do?(Who's "we" by the way? I sure as hell didn't instruct anyone do to that.)

Ms. Merkel, who last fall declared that âoespying between friends is simply unacceptableâ and that the United States had opened a breach of trust that would have to be repaired, said at the news conference that âoewe have a few difficulties yet to overcome.â One remaining issue, she said, was the âoeproportionalityâ of the surveillance.

You don't need extraordinary proof. It's the basic bones of the NSA's charter. They monitor overseas communications with an eye on collecting information that can help people in this country make informed security, military, and foreign policy decisions and actions. That's their entire reason for existing. It's why they're separate from the FBI.

Why did Obama promise not to spy on Merkel if that's what "we instructed our Congress to" do?

Because, as he's caught red handed doing on a regular basis about all sorts of things, he was once again lying. Of course our intelligence operations will continue

Then provide a link to the NSA's charter and quote the portion you think is relevant.Argument by Assertion is not an argument, which is exactly what I called out the GGP for.

Of course our intelligence operations will continue to try to learn what other governments are up to, just like they do to us and everyone else.

I'm talking specifically about spying on Heads of State,so if you're saying that other governments are tapping Obama's cellphone,don't even bother to hit reply, call your local FBI field office and give them your proof.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," said Carney. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

Ms. Merkel asked whether the US had been monitoring her phone, and Obama replied that the US is not doing so. The omission of the past tense was glaringly obvious at the time - essentially an admission that the US had, in fact, being doing so

whether he is guilty or not is not a subject of voting and opinion polls. The percentages in favor or not have nothing to do with whether he guilty of committing a crime, whether the laws used to prosecute him are appropriate and constitutional, whether the governments efforts at pursuing a conviction are proper and correct, whether the public service and expression of rights done by Snowden overrides the intent of the law, etc. etc. All having nothing to do with a focus group or opinion poll

Snowden could have chosen to leak his documents anonymously through a Congressman. Amash would have loved to blame Obama for evil. Wyden is always good on these issues. And he probably could have done so anonymously, because the NSA can't piss off Congress or they all get fired

That'd be the same Wyden who already knew a lot of what Snowden revealed and felt he couldn't say anything because it was all classified? The same Congress that discovered they'd been lied to, openly, baldly and repeatedly, and did diddly squat because it was a high ranking member of the security state who did it?

Good one. Snowden did what he did because the entire US political structure has been subverted by the military to such an extent that there is nobody left who will hold them genuinely accountable. The press won't do it. Congress won't do it. The courts won't do it. The only guy left who will do it was a 30 year old former spy. That's what America is, now.

In that case it was to get a trade secret about the manufacture of clove cigarettes. Still happy about your taxpayer dollars at work? Risking relations with two allies presumably because someone in the NSA got bribed by a cigarette company.

You point out widespread malfeasance among the ruling class, and you will be made an example of.

Until the American public stands up and demands that the people responsible for turning the USA into a surveillance state ALSO see their day in court, there can be no fairness. That needs to happen not for some low level NSA guy made to take a fall, but to the very top, up to and including the current and former POTUSes.

Our society was built around not having a "ruling class" except from the law, and a "ruled cl

I see this partial slogan bandied about all the time, that we only have ourselves to blame. How the fuck exactly do we stand up and demand? Most of us do already.. voting doesn't fix things. Peaceful protest doesn't fix things. Hell, the only real power we do have is w/ $, and that doesn't fix things. Snowden has done what few of us are capable of, mainly because we're peons, and it's still not fixing things.

"Until the American public stands up and demands" means the only real way things will happen will be through violence.

If Mr. Snowden is a traitor, we need to fix the laws until he ISN'T a traitor. He performed a valuable service to the citizens of this republic, and to the citizens of many other nations around the world.

So technically the definition of treason encompasses ANY whistleblower about ANY National Security issues.

Perhaps, so.

It is mostly an academic point, however. There are plenty of crimes the feds can charge Snowden with.

Including the theft of data, CFAA violations including wire fraud, willful unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence, unauthorized disemination of national defense information, and espionage charges.

They can essentially put him in jail for a few hundred years, or get the death penalty already:
without having to even invoke treason as a charge against Snowden.

I think it would be easier to ask "Does anyone think Snowden would get a fair trial?" It would be a much shorter list. And most of the people answering yes can be easily identified as flat out liars. (Kerry and pretty much any politician.)

If he returns to the US, Snowden will never again see the light of day. Look at what happened to insiders like Thomas Drake (an NSA guy with 30 years in) who developed an analysis tool named "Thin Thread". He added constitutional protections. The NSA removed them. He complained. He was then threatened with 1000 years in prison by Federal Prosecuters (Persecutors?). Included was gag orders on just about everything, constant surveilence, seizure of this computers (home/work/wherever). Wiretaps, harrasment, intimidation, threats of physical violence, physical violence, etc. And he was an inside guy. Then take a look at what happened to the guy who was running Lavabit [wikipedia.org]. Gag orders prohibiting him from talking to his lawyer, gag orders preventing him from talking to anyone, judges imposing arbitrary fines of $5000 per day, he isn't even allowed to see the charges against him! This is sick! The US Constitution is an ideal that the US Government cannot live up to (and they have no intention of trying). If he returned to the US, what would happen to Snowden would best be described as "Punitive, Vindictive, and Arbitrary".

Traitor or not, he Pwned their ass. The NSA look like complete idiots, and continue to do so, and Snowden has shown them up at every turn. Remind me what we are paying billions of dollars for again? Whether or not you can lock up Snowden, the NSA needs its plug pulled for utter incompetence.

I think there's a tendency to lose sight of why Snowden blew the whistle: The NSA, CIA, Homeland Security, DEA, and thousands of private security contractors that've sprung up since 9/11 are creating the aparatus of a security state. It's important to take a good, hard look at the other end of that road. Where does the security state lead to? I haven't heard it put better than this: "Christopher Hitchens - The Axis of Evil revisited", Fora.tvt, 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

It's worrying that Washington is doubling down on its efforts to establish its security state now that it's been made public.

At least all the whistle blowers are giving us the transparency Obama promised but failed to deliver.

I cant even watch the news, its all playing the public for fools. Democrats this, Republicans that. Corporation ABC gets approval to fuck more customers with blessing of its bought and paid for chairmen in power. Corruption in our courts and police are on par with third world countries. Every day we have more innocent people being slaughtered by police officers.

Where are the Military men with honor running our Country? We get lawyers, LAWYERS, the scum of the earth who sold their soul and ideals for money.

There is no Honor in our Government. How many people are still going to prison for minor drug offenses for non violent use, Obama said he would stop that, he hasn't.

And all you people will still vote a Democrat or Republican into office thinking things will change.

Why anyone thinks they can get a fair trial, a system that makes you plead so you dont get LIFE in prison. We have the largest prison population in the world and its not from finding people innocent. We have an estimated 12-15% of innocent men in prison so what, 220,000 thousand innocent people in prison. How many extra are there for non violent drug use? 50%?

I'd like to bitch more, but Game of Thrones is on. Maybe I'll rant on facebook, that will do just as good as my slashdot post.

He was the very first American to be prosecuted with it. That means the prosecutor was going to take it a lot more carefully and not try to piss off the public to the point where they would totally rebel against the unreasonable and probably unconstitutional aspects of it.

Snowden would be prosecuted & sentenced. We would all be pissed off. Some cities would even have public protests. Then Snowden would get locked in a cell. Things would gradually cool down. Uh, whatever happened to ol' Ed?

Let's face it though. He is guilty. He admits what he's done. We can argue about what the law should be, but not what the law is. It's illegal to take classified documents like Snowden did, and start giving them away to everybody like Snowden did. His reasons for doing what he did are irrelevant as it pertains to his legal liability. The fact that he or even the public sees himself as a whistle blower over illegal actions by the government are irrelevant as they pertain to his legal liability.

Of course, we do have jury nullification in the common law system. A jury could very well say, okay, well he did the crime, the evidence is overwhelming, but we're not going to say he's guilty because we don't agree with the law. That's quite possible. Sure, the prosecutor and judge will try to tell the jury that's not allowed, but it is, and it can happen. The jury system exists specifically so the people can check the government's power.

This is all a separate matter from trial fairness, of course. If I was Snowden, I might not be so inclined to trust a US federal court with my fate. The judge might disallow evidence or testimony that would give Snowden and his lawyers a chance to argue however subtlety for jury nullification. The judge might not sustain valid objections from the defense. The judge could give a horribly unfair instruction. All kinds of things could happen. Considering the overwhelming political pressures that are sure to be placed on any kind of trial, Snowden might very well find himself screwed. He might also think it was all worth it anyway.

Then of course we have the appeals system and of course the presidential pardon. Even if Snowden doesn't get a jury to nullify, that's hardly the end of it. He might get his case to the Supreme Court and have a fairer chance there. He might also have a groundswell of popular support that results in a pardon or at least a commutation of his sentence.

Personally, I would like to see Snowden prosecuted for the crimes he's accused of and given a trial by his peers. I would very much like to see him get a fair trial, with all the evidence and arguments heard. The outcome of such a trial would be of great interest to me, as well as whatever happens afterwards. We would all learn something from it. It might suck for Snowden, but he thinks he's doing all of this to teach the American people about their government. The way his trial is conducted would certainly teach us all about our government.

You authoritarian monarchist hacks out yourselves by spending soooo much time talking about how Snowden deserves to go to jail, but say nothing about the lawbreaking and lawbreakers revealed by Snowden. Not one word on Clapper going to jail for perjury, not one word for imprisoning Alexander for FISA violations, not one word on impeaching the POTUS for overseeing it all.

We can argue about what the law should be, but not what the law is.

5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each violation of FISA laws. But this was never about the law, for you.

Did you actually read my post? I didn't say he deserves to go to jail. I said that he should get a fair trial, and outlined several scenarios in which he could escape serious prison time despite his admitted guilt.

In another post on this story I say that it's a good thing the American people learn of the government doing things the American people doesn't want them to do. I'm glad Snowden revealed PRISM and programs like it. I'm less glad he revealed details about the NSA doing it's job, like spying on foreigners, but that's another issue.

I happen to believe in trials. So did the founding fathers. The alternative is summary judgement or an assassination. Would you prefer those? Certainly some authoritarians and monarchists do.

Great, that makes three of us. We can start with Clapper and Alexander, since they're easy to apprehend and Snowden isn't. We don't even have to extradite them from Russia or Hong Kong. We can send some Federal marshals to pick them up after breakfast tomorrow. Sound good to you?

The thing is, almost anyone in the current or previous governments is guilty of breaking the same laws that Snowden is accused of breaking. But in a world where everyone is guilty, the prosecutor is the judge. His discretion to prosecute is the ultimate judgement. If you do decide to prosecute, finding the person guilty is only a formality in our current system. Everyone is guilty. There is no discussion, it is no longer possible to live life without breaking any laws.

Clapper openly admitted he lied to congress. Snowden openly admitted to espionage (he may define the term differently, but the law defines what he did as espionage and he admitted to the acts). I think the chances of either getting a trial any time soon is pretty slim. All of this is hypothetical.

I would like to see fair trials for everyone accused of crimes. This is an article about Snowden, so I commented on Snowden. I'm sorry if other people decided that my commenting on-topic has implications about my views about off-topic subjects. If Slashdot has a story tomorrow about government officials admitting to crimes, I will happily say they're guilty too, and should get a fair trial with all the same legal rights that Snowden should get. I think trials are a good thing. I think due process is a good thing. I think our justice system that includes jury nullification, appeals, commutations, and pardons is a good thing. Apparently that offends some people. Who knew?

I think the chances of either getting a trial any time soon is pretty slim. All of this is hypothetical.

For different reasons, though. Clapper is a person in a position of power, and is doing things that many scumbags with power in the government agree with. These people are almost impossible to convict, short of extreme circumstances. Snowden simply ran away, and getting him while he's in a different country like Russia is difficult.

Of course, if Snowden did stand trial, a moral jury would use jury nullification to prevent him from being convicted for the 'crime' of revealing the government's immoral activities.

I think our justice system that includes jury nullification, appeals, commutations, and pardons is a good thing.

We had some good ideas to be sure, but I wouldn't call it an overall good thing, what with plea bargains being allowed, prosecutors being encouraged to prosecute people whether or not they're guilty so they can increase their rate of successful prosecutions and be rewarded for it, the fact that the rich and powerful often get slapped on the wrist when normal people would be punished harshly, the fact that (as you pointed out, I believe) jury nullification is being discouraged, the fact that the Supreme Court routinely modifies the constitution with invisible ink to make the people have fewer rights and give the government more power, and a number of other things.

So yeah, there are some good ideas here, but anyone planning on following our lead needs to take note of our many failings.

I freely admit that there are problems with the system too. But that's a discussion for another topic. I was only here to address specifically this news article. I didn't say anything terribly controversial with my very narrow focus, but unfortunately people decided to imagine my positions on other issues I did not address at all, positions I do not hold.

Geez, a guy can't come out in favor of fair trials without getting called an authoritarian. Who knew?

Geez, a guy can't come out in favor of fair trials without getting called an authoritarian. Who knew?

No one calling for a trial of Snowden is "coming out in favor of fair trials", because Snowden would not get a fair trial. They are coming out in favor of kangaroo courts. You demonstrate awareness of this when you say that "All kinds of things could happen" during a trial of Snowden.

That's the problem with the Espionage Act of 1917 - it defines espionage as giving any confidential information to anyone that isn't supposed to have it (and yes, in that loosely worded terminology). That means Richard Armitage, likely Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby, and someone at the White House for last week's press release of the CIA head in Afghanistan are all guilty of treason.

I really question of whether even Ellsberg would have walked if it weren't for the gross misconduct of evidence gathering (you know Nixon loved his wiretapping). He certainly was guilty of the Espionage Act of 1917. I suspect had he been convicted, a legal battle over the Constitutionality of the act would have ensued, but it was delayed by the case's dismissal. I doubt either the Espionage Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which was designed using the Espionage Act as a template) could stand a serious court challenge.

Why is fleeing not valid in the context of civil disobedience? Especially when facing what is essentially a certain slow death sentence after trial based on Kangaroo Court procedures? There is no requirement that a person be a martyr to engage in civil disobedience.

Examples of how ludicrous the martyr requirement sounds are easy to come by, even without Godwinning this comment. Let's say a person is a N. Korean coyote, or whatever the term is there for helping people across the border illegally. If that

You are wrong in stating that they would "have been hanged immediately by a squad of soldiers". Maybe you have been watching too many Hollywood movies. The fledgling USA copied its justice system lock, stock and barrel from that of Britain.

The rebels would have been arrested and detained in prison. They would then have been tried for the crime of treason, and - in view of the overwhelming evidence against them - found guilty and hanged by order of the court. Exactly as all those found guilty of treason agai

Huh. No. You're wrong. The founding fathers believed in fair trials and so do I. And that is why using the Espionage Act to prosecute an American revealing illegal government actions to the American people is unconstitutional. But the Constitution means nothing in the US anymore. Also Snowden has not admitted he's is guilty of espionage. But by charging him with that the government gets to suppress any defense based on the fact that he was revealing illegal unconstitutional actions by government agencies.

Obviously by a trial I mean a fair trial. That's why I said "I would very much like to see him get a fair trial" in my original post. So no, I don't think I'm wrong. I think you're trying to turn me into a straw man. What I said was all pretty reasonable if you don't read into it any more than what I specifically said.

Espionage is defined a specific way under the law. Snowden can deny he's committed espionage all he likes, but are you trying to say that he hasn't admitted to doing the things that the law defines as espionage? He has absolutely admitted to doing those things.

This is like saying "no, I didn't murder anybody, but I did stab them repeatedly until they died." Yeah, you're a murderer according to the law whether you want to call yourself one or not. A prosecutor doesn't need to prove that you think that should be called murder, only that you stabbed somebody repeatedly until they died, and that the law defines that as murder which is illegal. The prosecution's case, seriously, would be over very quickly in the Snowden trial. All they have to do is read Snowden's statements back, and explain what laws he was admitting to breaking, regardless of what personal definition he might hold for that.

It'd be up to Snowden's defense to try to argue for jury nullification. They could very well prevail in court. If they don't prevail in court, they can appeal, and appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. If that doesn't work they can lobby for a commutation or a pardon. If the laws he broke are unjust, or unjustly applied in his case, it's going to take a trial to change those laws or the application of those laws. Internet posting won't accomplish anything. Personally, I'd like to see something accomplished. Wouldn't you?

> Spreading it around to make absolutely sure that Pakistan is helping the Taliban and Al Queda to make good, constructive use of it

Nonsense. From their own testimony, NSA personnel have admitted that Snowden repeatedly went to his own superiors and his own chain of command about criminal behavior by his own colleagues and superiors, criminal behavior in violation of US law, the US constitution, and international treaties. He's done what he can to keep purely internal security documents _unpublished_, by attempting to filter it of genuine security risks to US personnel and civilians worldwide.

He had no rational recourse left to help prevent criminal, abusive behavior on a worldwide scale. I'm afraid that your protestations sound like those of corrupt police departments when discovered beating prisoners. "If you testify, it helps the drug lords."

How naive are you? Do you really think that if Snowden could access all that material that the Russians and Chinese hadn't already? The techniques Snowden used, basic social engineering, are so primitive and obvious that it's hard to imagine foreign spies having any difficulty at all getting in.

There is no way Snowden could have revealed what the NSA was doing and backed it up with irrefutable evidence without providing information that may help people being targeted. Not just the domestic spying, but the unacceptable spying on supposed allies. Sometimes you have to reveal details to reveal wrong doing, and in the case of the NSA it had to be the original files with minimal redactions because he knew they would do everything to discredit him (and they did).

Trials are a good thing. It is how we as a society decide truth and reach justice. It's also how the citizens of this country nullify laws that they don't like that the politicians won't change. No amount of internet posting is going to accomplish what you want to accomplish here. A trial can. Jurors can decide to ignore the law if they don't like it. If he's found guilty of the crimes he's al

And no one will even speak the true threat the NSA poses to the world.

No one rational thinks that Merkel represents a credible ally of Al Queda. Its all about finding out what Merkel is doing, in order to surreptitiously or politically thwart Germany's political or financial actions which the NSA disapproves of. The NSA will undermine the democratically elected will of any nation, all in the name of US "security". Its not the first time the US tried to do this. Just ask Iran and Chile.

Jury nullification almost never happen, and in this case the jury would be carefully selected to completely exclude this remote possibility. Like it or now, your attitude summarizes a lot of what we hear about Snowden. Almost no one on the radio, newspaper, etc says anything about the crimes that Snowden has uncovered, and that will go unpunished, because, you know, everything is about Snowden.

The best option for Snowden is to hide and wait for the American people to realize he was right all along, and a true hero like Ellsberg, and certainly not submit himself to some kangaroo court. If that never happens, the American people deserve their fate.

You really are an idiot aren't you. Espionage Act. Read it sometime. He would not be able to tell his story:

"As I know from my own case, even Snowden's own testimony on the stand would be gagged by government objections and the (arguably unconstitutional) nature of his charges. That was my own experience in court, as the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for giving information to the American people

The idea that any sub-part of Congress can readily impose punishment upon a witness flies in the face of the concept of checks-and-balances. If an outraged subcommittee or committee had the power to jail or fine witnesses based on their testimony then imagine the fun a subcommittee completely controlled by political radicals (there are several House subcommittees that qualify) could have effectively removing members of the Executive from their ability to act ! Catch-22 would be de rigeur. Chairman: Spill the Beans! Witness: That would be unlawful! Chairman: Answering that is unlawful! Go to jail! Chairman: Spill the Beans! WItness: There are no beans to spill. Chairman: That's a lie! Go to jail!

First of all I'm neither an authoritarian nor a hack. Name calling doesn't get you anywhere.

It's not "name calling" when it's true, as it's completely impossible for anyone to make these arguments without being an authoritarian hack. It's as embarrassing as watching John Hagee whine that he's not bigoted towards Catholics, even as he's saying they follow the Whore of Babylon and are all going to hell. Case in point:

Secondly I never said I agreed with the NSA's spying on American citizens, because I don't

What's there to learn? That the U.S. government has grown out of control into a corrupt state of bullshit, lies and deceit, where not even the basic guarantees of its own Constitution and human rights of its citizens are upheld? Where you are automatically a criminal until proven innocent (assuming you're even granted a "speedy and fair trial" to pull that one off in the first place)?

The only thing to learn here is just what the extent of this country's corruption is. And that is the only thing I've consistently noticed: that it only goes one way... and that is, it only gets worse.

If your arguing you need to respect terrible laws %100 of the time, with no alotment for mitigating circumstances, then you are seriously out of touch with reality.

>Personally, I would like to see Snowden prosecuted for the crimes he's accused of and given a trial by his peers.

you know damn well he'll never been given a fair trial. The attitude of both parties and the government in general for the last 25 years was to milk the system for everything you can get, bend every rule, then hiring some PR hack to convince everyone that its for the better good.

Notable to Ellsberg's case, the government massively fucked up by breaking into his psychiatrists office, stealing documents, and getting caught red handed plus some other illegal wiretapping. This is the reason Ellsberg walked -- not because he managed to overcome the espionage act, but because the government screwed itself. In other words, Ellsberg won the lottery but nobody else has since.

Let's face it though. He is guilty. He admits what he's done. We can argue about what the law should be, but not what the law is. It's illegal to take classified documents like Snowden did, and start giving them away to everybody like Snowden did.

Really? Explain to me, again, what grants Congress the power to censor speech. Just because Congress decrees something doesn't make it law. There's a reason we have a Constitution. It isn't just a piece of paper to look at. It's the basis by which Congress has any power to do anything. Literally, the Constitution creates the Congress. To ignore it or try to usurp it over some common law interpretation of State Secrets or such language is patently absurd. It's just as absurd as if the NSA claimed a copyright on their activities. Any act of that nature would be designed to censor the truth to usurp a democracy.

And before you argue something about troop movements, well, that's possibly treason and is clearly spelled out in the Constitution. ICBM launch codes? They should be quickly replaceable if there's any fear of a leak. Military secrets on designing ICBMs? Should only be given to people you can trust. Really, this whole situation arose precisely because Snowden had every reason to not trust the NSA. Snowden did precisely the right thing. The NSA was/is stupid to be setup with contractors like they were/are. Their actions are whole unAmerican--and God do I feel horrible using such language given how much such has been so heavily abused, but it so wholly fits this situation.

Really, the only thing your whole argument has any weight on is that hypothetically the system is self-correcting and the courts can, through many appeals and over 15 years of trials, finally reach the obvious conclusion that the Espionage Act is wholly unenforceable in law--even though in fact it would be effectively in force for 15+ years and would ruin Snowden's life much more than his current situation. So, yea, you want Snowden to be a martyr upon an altar of government that's so far down the rabbit hole just to teach the American people yet another lesson about how fucked up their country is, as if it weren't blatantly evident when the President and most of Congress is calling for him being lynched.

As another post mentions Rosa Parks, do you really think enough people are willing to do what it takes to overthrow our current corrupt system because they've simply had enough? I'll give you a hint. The Vietnam war didn't cause it to happen and things have actually gotten worse. The hippies became the enforcers.

Snowden was wise to leave. Unfortunately, he wasn't wise enough to disappear to a better locale than Russia (the lesson of US searches and abuses of people who have the US as but a stop over to their final destination should have warned him what would happen).

At this time, I think any attempt to bring Snowden to trial would ignite a firestorm in this country no matter what verdict was reached. I think that will be the situation for the rest of his life.

There can be no question that he violated USA laws.

But there can also be no question that his actions are bringing pressure to bear on USA agencies to force them to comply with the Constitution. Without those actions, the NSA would continue to run wild as a rogue agency.

I think the only sane way to resolve this mess is to let it alone until Obama's last day in office. Then give Snowden the same kind of Presidential pardon that President Ford gave to President Nixon: a pardon before trial, a pardon before even accusation or indictment. Let Snowden have his passport back, so he could live and move anywhere in the world with the same freedom that any other USA citizen enjoys. But make it clear that he is not welcome to return to the USA, since nothing good could come of that. I would even support paying him a modest annuity on condition that he never return to the USA, and never take any further legal or public action regarding his status. Let him live out his days as, in the view of some persons, a reprehensible outcast in exile. And in the view of other persons, as a patriotic hero whose sacrifices include ostracism from his native land. Let the historians of a hundred years from now be the ones to measure the value of his actions. There is no reason why that has to be done now and there are many reasons why it should not be attempted until all of us are dead.

His reasons for doing what he did are irrelevant as it pertains to his legal liability.

IANAL, I don't claim to know even the main points of the Espionage Act (nor of law in general), but I will point out that the motive [wikipedia.org] and intent [wikipedia.org] for engaging in a criminal activity actually do matter quite a bit when it comes to the topics of liability and guilt. Suggesting otherwise is just plain wrong.

Consider the simple case of a person killing another person. Was it in self-defense, the result of negligence, or a carefully planned, cold-blooded murder? The first likely wouldn't result in any criminal charges, the second would probably result in manslaughter charges, and the last would almost certainly result in murder charges. Why though? After all, the result was the same, wasn't it? Someone died, and I was the one who did the act that caused it. I may have even been thinking clearly in all three cases.

What about if I shoved a guy in the chest so hard his ribs punctured his lungs? Sound pretty bad, right? Unless I was doing CPR on him, in which case it's not quite so bad after all. Yet the act was the same in both: I pushed his ribs so hard that I caused serious physical harm to him.

The reasons we do things matter. The law quite often recognizes that fact, whether when determining guilt (e.g. self-defense vs. cold-blooded murder) or determining the sentence (e.g. a lawsuit against me for harming that guy will go a lot better if I was being a Good Samaritan towards him than if I was in a fist fight with him). I don't know whether or not they come into play here, and I don't feel comfortable playing armchair lawyer by asserting that they do or don't, but I wanted to point out that these things do matter in broader law, and that they may very well matter here as well.

In the meantime, I'd prefer to talk about how things should be, since I (and I'd wager 99.9% of us) clearly don't know how they are.;)

You've missed a very, very big loophole. The US government decides NOT to prosecute him. Banks commit massive fraud and destroy our economy in 2008.. and... nobody gets prosecuted. That was most certainly a political decision to prosecute or not. It happens all the time. It's really quite business as usual.

What I'd like to see is the Obama administration simply say they were wrong to spy on Americans and vacuum up masses amounts of intelligence without a warrant, then stop doing that crap and pass a law that says they can't. Then refuse to prosecute Snowden for any wrongdoing.

The law works like this ALL the time. I'm no fool and I sure as hell realize this isn't going to happen anytime soon. But wait a few years for current guys to get out of office, and someone else to get in (likely a Democrat wanting to distinguish themselves from the past, or one of those extrodinarily rare beed of non-crazy Republicans who also are wiling to stand up to their crazy party every so often). Then it might, just might happen. But not for perhaps 5-10 years.

This was due to the climate immediately following Watergate, where the judiciary had a lot of motive to prove themselves uncorrupt, at least compared to the executive branch of the time.

The current climate is one much of the evidence against Snowden would be considered classified, and therefore not challengeable. The FISA court, the national security letters, and other instruments available for use in shielding against charges of misconduct, and thus preventing such a dismissal, did not exist in Ellsberg's time.

Frankly, Snowden is lucky he initially established, and is successfully maintaining, a high profile, since it makes him less of a target for extraordinary rendition, which had it been used, he would have just disappeared into a black hole somewhere already.

A rendition is when you arrest somebody in a second country and immediately turn them over to a third. It generally looks a lot like a kidnapping, but with legal paperwork done in the second country, because all arrests are basically legal kidnappings.

No probable cause, illegal/secret evidence, no warrant, flown to a gulag or third world dictatorship, torture, no right to a lawyer much less an appeal, military kangaroo court under unlawful command influence [nbcnews.com], and then tortured with force-feeding when you start a hunger protest at your continued incarceration five years after your incacerators have cleared you for release.

All of our other extraordinary renditions have been to countries where the victim was born.

No. There are documented cases of people who were not from Syria or Egypt being shipped to those countries to be tortured in the presence of a US observer. That's one of the reasons why relations with both countries are a bit messy since the 200x governments of both had "dirt" on the US as well as an obligation due to co-operation.

Russia would be tough, but Snowden only wound up in Russia after he was left with no other options. So if he kept a low profile, he'd never have wound up in Russia.

If you think the US doesn't have the power to take it's own citizens from many, many countries in the world and just make them disappear, you're living in a delusion, The US has a golden ticket that the lawyers have been ever-expanding their justification to do anything. It's called the Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists [wikipedia.org], and it's been used to justify killing and targeting people that have no connection to the Sept 11 attacks. You think they wouldn't try use it to legally justify kidnapping Snowden?

And if they couldn't do that, you think they wouldn't use a CIA operative to kidnap him, or get some other group to do it? Countries are mean motherfuckers. You're under the misapprehension that countries actions are ruled by laws. They aren't, they're ruled by politics and what they can get away with. The OP is right. If Snowden hadn't put up a big profile rather quickly, the US govt would have found him and hung him out to dry in one way or another. (And I'm certain Ed Snowden is under no illusion this would have happened, and likely was a major reason he DID come forward).

2) It wasn't an execution, it was an armed conflict on a battlefield. Americans were shot at from and inside the house. There was every reason to believe that Osama would have a suicide vest or otherwise resist violently to capture. Osama made no attempt to surrender and was therefore a combatant. Of course they shot him on sight. If they'd found him face down naked and spread eagle on the floor screaming "I surrender" they would have taken him alive.

So your basic point is that the US is deepest darkest totalitarian fascist Gulag state in the history of people. We don't actually have laws or courts.

Thanks for clearing that up. No, really, thanks.

Certainly not in history; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had some pretty strong arguments in favor of the former Soviet Union, and the dissident prisons in North Korea - if you're born there, you stay there - give even Hitler's Germany a run for its money.

On the other hand, we had a campaign promise from the current U.S. Administration to close down Guantanamo Bay, a prison which exists to grant the U.S. an extraterritoriality so that it can violate it's own laws with impunity, and I don't see it closed down yet.

Obama did try to close Guantanamo Bay, Congress wrote a law forbidding it and included terms that he had to give congress 30 days notice before a single prisoner could be transferred so that congress could write a new law blocking it. There have already been half a dozen Republican House members that have claimed the president broke the law by negotiating the exchange for the American POW.

This is a gross isrepresentation -- Ellsberg states in the article that his trial was not fair:

As I know from my own case, even Snowden's own testimony on the stand would be gagged by government objections and the (arguably unconstitutional) nature of his charges. That was my own experience in court, as the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for giving information to the American people.

I had looked forward to offering a fuller account in my trial than I had given previously to any journalist – any Glenn Greenwald or Brian Williams of my time – as to the considerations that led me to copy and distribute thousands of pages of top-secret documents. I had saved many details until I could present them on the stand, under oath, just as a young John Kerry had delivered his strongest lines in sworn testimony.

But when I finally heard my lawyer ask the prearranged question in direct examination – Why did you copy the Pentagon Papers? – I was silenced before I could begin to answer. The government prosecutor objected – irrelevant – and the judge sustained. My lawyer, exasperated, said he "had never heard of a case where a defendant was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what he did." The judge responded: well, you're hearing one now.

And so it has been with every subsequent whistleblower under indictment, and so it would be if Edward Snowden was on trial in an American courtroom now.

In addition, Ellsberg never got a "fair trial"; the charges against him were dismissed for gross misconduct on the part of the government -- see http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com] for a summary.

According to existentialism, all ethics is relative. Humans are ethical beings, just like some social bugs, like ants, bees or mammals like dogs, and we have a choice in how we want to live, what the best ethical system suits our needs as a whole. There is no inherently right or wrong in the world, but there is a "We don't wanna live that way, with those ethics" choice. It's like saying we don't want to play baseball by those rules, as there is no inherent right

Now you may say, should we be spying on Germany? Well, you'd be naive if you believed the German's weren't spying on us in some fashion

Is that really all you have? That we should do it to them, because (you believe) they're doing it to us? That leads you directly to, "well we should be torturing their soldiers for information, because after all, you'd be naïve to think they don't torture ours".

Well, you'd be naive if you believed the German's weren't spying on us in some fashion.

Given that the US Gov is collectively shitting bricks over China allegedly spying on America and is busy indicting Chinese government employees, actually you'd be naive to believe Germany is doing anything like what the NSA has been doing. Do you think if Germany had managed to tap Obama and was busy following his phone around, taping his conversations with his generals etc America would just blow it off and say "oh no problem, we knew you were doing that and we're cool with it"? Of course not.

Goddamn yanks. That's the whole problem with America summed up right there - the division of the world into only two categories, domestic and foreign, patriot and traitor. As if other countries and other people don't even exist. Then you wonder why a whopping 70% of under 30 in Europe want to give Snowden asylum [issuu.com] i.e. they would jump at the chance to massively piss off the USA and cause a diplomatic crisis. That's what they think of America.

I'm not convinced the NSA is collecting more information about me than Google is

Then you haven't been paying attention. The NSA has been collecting everything from Google via fibre taps, and lots more in addition. So by definition they are collecting more.

We're told that we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, and suspend aspects of our Constitutional law, in order to stop terrorism. Then we find out that some this stuff we bought and paid for is being used to tap the Chancellor's cellphone one of the most prosperous, stable, and democratic allies in the world. How is that not relevant?

It goes directly to the motive and function of our surveillance network. We're told the NSA needs to tap domestic phone lines to catch foreign terrorists. Do they mean foreign terrorists like Chancellor Merkel?

Heck, supposedly Obama said that he didn't know about it. If we take his word at face value, is it not relevant that the intelligence regime has grown so out of proportion that it's doing things that even the president would abhor?

And we should take these things at face value. Otherwise we're liable to fall prey to our romantic Cold War notions about the honor and peril involved in international espionage.

Let's be clear: the bulk of the current intelligence regime is not a successor to the heroes of WWII and Cold War intelligence. The current regime is what you get when you ask Google and Facebook how to go about fighting terrorism.

Step 1: Spy on everybodyStep 2: ????Step 3: Profit

The thing is, mass surveillance works for Google and Facebook because they profit off of each individual, and off of each banal web page we visit. The equation wrt to terrorism is completely different. There's no logic--only idiotic presumptions--that spying on everybody will allow us to thwart the random and exceedingly rare actions of a small cadre of loosely networked individuals around the globe.

But the administration (who I voted for and otherwise support) and the NSA are full of people who were conducing what should be illegal and probably are unconstitutional US spying operations IN THE UNITED STATES.

The sad thing is- Snowden's actions will probably hurt us abroad and not do a thing to stop the fascist and creepy internal spying on U.S. citizens.

First, Snowden took more than just the documents that have been published by the Guardian, this was confirmed by the Guardian in the first days of the leaks. Snowden asked them "to use their judgement and not publish anything 'seriously damaging'", which means there is more than just what the public has been made aware of.

Which is not relevant, you dont even know what the unpublished documents are or whether they have any bearing on anything whatsoever.

Second, it is almost certain that ALL of that information was given over to the governments of the countries he traveled to.
So the Espionage Act CAN be applied quite easily to Snowden for any classified information given to foreign governments that was not also part of the information leaked to the media.

And thankfully "almost certain" is a meaningless term that you use because you want it to be true to support your point of view but you have no proof, you then use this baseless assertion to attempt to justify application of the Espionage Act.

"Second, it is almost certain that ALL of that information was given over to the governments of the countries he traveled to.So the Espionage Act CAN be applied quite easily to Snowden for any classified information given to foreign governments that was not also part of the information leaked to the media"

patriot: A person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.

Snowden has been consistent in explaining his motivation as exposing the misuse of government power against American citizens. Whether or not you agree with his method of doing so, it is hard to see that it was unpatriotic (unless your particular definition of patriotism is an unquestioning allegiance to his employer).

Anyway, you have to understand that from the point of view of the rest of the world, we don't really care whether or not Snowden is a patriot. What we care about is that NSA have been working to undermine systems of trust, whether those are the encryption of communications, or even the relationships between friendly countries. And much of this done without significant goverrnment oversight, let alone public discussion. You are naive if you think that the trial of a whistleblower is more important than these subversive actions of the NSA.

He could have simply shut up and lived the good life while being complicit in the spying machine that has rendered the freedoms of the US a joke. The real criminals have got away without a scratch and the spying continues without restriction or modification. Obama has betrayed the spirit and law of the Constitution, as did Bush. Unlimited power corrupts.

Reporting, revealing, and refusing to take part in criminal activity is non-treasonous, lawful, and required by the military. I have no idea if the FBI or other TLAs (three letter acronyms/agencies) have that clause, but I wouldn't be surprised.

"There are processes in place to deal with law violations committed under the veil of state secrecy. Snowden did not lift a finger for even a moment to follow those processes, electing instead to break the law himself and go straight to the public."

If that was even true he would have had good reason to do that. Two of his predecessors had their lives completely ruined after they tried to follow process.

One of my favorite lines (gleaned from a post here as a matter of fact) is, do you really expect to win a rigged game by playing by the rules?

Snowden told NBC's Brian Williams "he had tried to go through channels before leaking documents to journalists, repeatedly raising objections inside the NSA, in writing, to its widespread use of surveillance. But he said he was told, "more or less, in bureaucratic language, 'You should stop asking questions.'" Two U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that Snowden sent at least one email to the NSA's office of general counsel raising policy and legal questions."

But, despite his explicit claims of having gone through proper channels, and government officials' confirmations that he also tried to reach someone who's job it is to care about this stuff, I'm supposed to take what you've said at face value and believe that he didn't "lift a finger for even a moment to follow those processes", rather than believe that you're talking out of your ass regarding a topic of which you've a

Remarkably, during the post-interview analysis show that streamed on the web, NBC News anchor and correspondent Andrea Mitchell said in April 2013 he sent the one email to the General Counsel, which he talked about. She then acknowledged the NSA could be covering up “other emails” and Snowden could be right—that there is a “paper trail” showing he made “multiple attempts” to take his concerns to superiors.

So tell me, what makes you so quick to believe an organization that has proven on multiple occasions that it is willing to lie to the people and directly to Congress (and then spy on Congress) over the person who exposed the whole debacle, particularly when his claims about the efficacy of going through channels has been corroborated by others known to have gone through channels?

Well, yeah, he was caught holding the bloody knife standing over the body, but since he says the bystander never said 'stop'

I'd wave it and make those who repeat stupid bullshit reflexively mule-kick themselves in the balls. Treason is the only crime spelled out in the Constitution, and for good reason - so fuckhead monarchists like the AC here can't sling it against anyone they don't like.

Speaking of fuckheads, what about the lawbreaking revealed by Snowden? You guys out yourselves as pathetic hacks when you aren't demanding the impeachment and incarceration of top level officials, from Clapper to Alexander to the POTUS himself, at the same time that you're demanding Snowden's head.

The bar for execution is set pretty high. The last parties to be executed gave the USSR nuclear secrets, and THAT was controversial, while Snowden might win a Nobel Peace Prize. If you think execution is appropriate, you are out of your mind.